Matthew Yglesias wonders why the Bush administration doesn’t mention our cooperation with Kosovo Muslims during NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in order to “ dispel [the] ‘war on Islam’ talk.” Tacitus sends a “Note to Yglesias: It’s possible that we didn’t highlight our close relationships with Muslim leaders in Bosnia and Kosovo after 9/11 in part because those leaders are not very good people.” Tacitus goes on:
Izetbegovic and the KLA can thank God that they were blessed with the blundering, bloodthirsty Serbs as their enemies. It is only set against them and the Milosevic regime that they seem even faintly morally creditable.
Tacitus is correct that the KLA are hardly nice guys. But it is almost always a choice between siding with the lesser of two evils or allowing the greater evil to dominate. Our intervention in Kosovo may or may not have been a good decision. Arguing that we chose to support the lesser of two evils sounds once there, however, is faint damnation –- if it is damnation at all.
The same lesson applies to Iraq (another war that I supported). It is not a question of “with us or against us” in Iraq — a lesson the Bush Administration appears finally to be learning. It is a question of choosing bad over worse, for those are the only options on the table.